Pregnancy Bug Reports

Steps: Went off the pill.Expected result: Get pregnant at some point. Probably will take months.Actual result: Took 2 months.

Steps: Got pregnant.Expected result: That’s it. You’re pregnant.Actual result: First 13 weeks filled with anxiety, because 1 in 4 (some even say 1 in 3) pregnancies fail in first trimester. This thing is basically still completely up in the air!

Steps: Told GP doctor I was pregnant.Expected result: Expected a government-produced brochure on what to expect, what needs to be done next, what I need to know, and an outline of the next 9-12 months.Actual result: Nothing. Doctor said congratulations, said I shouldn’t eat soft cheese or cold meats, booked me in for a blood test, and sent some paperwork off to our local hospital.

Steps: Tried to work out the baby’s due date. The instructions were to calculate the weeks from the first day of my last period.Expected result: The first day of my last period was on 9 February, and I saw the GP on the 17 March, so I expected that I was 6 weeks pregnant.Actual result: My GP said, no, I was 5 weeks pregnant. It turns out that you count the first week as “Week 0”. Go figure.

Steps: Got pregnant. Stayed pregnant.Expected result: Didn’t expect to feel any different for a long time, except maybe morning sickness.Actual result: My world was turned upside-down for a month. I had zero motivation, I felt desperately tired all the time and needed ridiculous amounts of sleep, and my diet changed: I didn’t feel like eating, but I was always thirsty, and drank loads of juice, mineral water, milo… and I never felt like having tea or coffee. I didn’t really know what was happening; I thought something in my personality had changed and I would never feel motivated again, especially as it went on for weeks! Also, I started feeling nauseous almost straight away, and by jove, that’s really horrible (luckily, it was only mild nausea and ginger pills fixed it). If I had to ride on a train, and had to stand up, I felt very dizzy and sick. I had to jump off straight away and get some air. (And this is the stage where you don’t have a baby bump – so other train passengers don’t know to help you!)

Steps: Looked up pregnancy on the internet.Expected result: That I would find useful information on what to expect, what needs to be done next, what I need to know, and an outline of the next 9-12 months.Actual result: The pregnancy/baby sites are rubbish and don’t give you any idea of the process, or what can happen.

Steps: Read a pregnancy book.Expected result: That I would find useful information on what to expect, what needs to be done next, what I need to know, and an outline of the next 9-12 months.Actual result: Every chapter introduced me to something else to be anxious about. One page was even about dangerous aromatherapy oils (including camphor, jasmine, rosemary and nutmeg!).

Steps: Wanted to be informed.Expected result: After millennia of humans having babies, I figured that, between the midwives, doctors, books and internet, I would be informed about what could happen.Actual result: Baffled at how little useful information I was given / could find.
– Early on, I started feeling lots of discomfort, bordering on constant pain, in my lower torso. This would happen every now and then, and sometimes prevented me from sleeping. Paracetamol eased the discomfort, but it was really concerning — was something going wrong? I was very fortunate to have one early confidante who had just been through pregnancy, who shared her story: She had experienced exactly the same awful discomfort and pain, and found out that it can happen when the embryo is embedding itself into the uterus, or when the uterus is expanding. Yes, a brochure sure would have been really helpful!
– Later, I had the fright of my life when I noticed blood loss. I called my GP and she said to go to Emergency. My mum, my boyfriend and I rushed to Emergency, completely freaking out (I was crying and thought I’d had a miscarriage), and they slowly ran a bunch of tests over 4 hours, which all came back fine, then we had to go back for another 4 hours the next day, to get an ultrasound and the ultrasound report. That was also fine. Nobody told us why they were running the tests, or what the likely cause was, or how severe it might be… it wasn’t until much later, talking to loads of other people and an obstetrician friend and Google-ing the heck out of this issue, that we discovered it was pretty common and not necessarily something to panic about. @#$!^%

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3 comments

That’s huge news!
I’ll say congratulations – because you appear to have been wanting this <3
So… Congratulations!! :D
I too would have expected/wanted/needed some kind of 12 step guide on what goes on. Though I guess the issue is that as time and medicine and opinions and fads come and go there's no concrete answer to any one question.
I suppose one way to look at it is that there is no destination – only a great journey to be shared. All the best!
Also – Sucking Thumb!!!!!

Fox Woods (@msfoxwoods)
Hello. Yes, my name is Fox. I love making things (clubs, workshops, events, communities, stories, products, videos, music). I have two (2) small kids and one (1) small dog. I made the kids, but not the dog. That would be weird. ⇢ more